SC20: How new seller Kris pushed past early mistakes and found success

Kris Rivenburgh is on the show today. Kris is a new Amazon seller that had his first sale in August 2015 and he shares some of the early mistakes that he made before pushing past and growing a successful multi product Amazon business.

A lot of the advice Kris gave is especially helpful to sellers just starting out but his advice on product selection at the tail end of the conversation was especially interesting as it's a position that hasn't been shared before on the show.

Want to ask a question?

Get involved and ask a question about selling on Amazon and Chris may answer your question live on a future episode of Sellercast. Also, if you think you'd be a good guest for the Sellercast podcast feel free to tell us more about you and your company here.

Need more product reviews?

Show Notes and Links

Podcast Transcript

Intro: Hello everyone, Chris Guthrie here, host of Sellercast. And in today’s episode, I speak with Kris Rivenburgh, who’s been selling on Amazon since August 2015. And in this episode, we talk about some of the successes, the struggles, and things that he would do differently as he went along the way growing his business that I think you’ll enjoy. And also, near the tail end of the conversation, we actually talk about the overall economy as a whole and how that may impact what types of products you should pick to sell on Amazon as well. I thought that was pretty interesting. So let’s start the show. And if you want to check out the show notes, you can go to Sellercast.com/20.

=====

Chris Guthrie: Hello everyone, Chris Guthrie here. And with me as well is a fellow Kris, starts with a K though. So I don’t know. I guess we’ll give him some points there. But Kris, welcome to the show.

Kris: Thank you very much, Chris.

Chris Guthrie: Anyways, interesting introduction here, but I’m glad that you’re here to talk as well. And let’s get the first question out of the way. How long have you been selling on Amazon for? And then we’ll talk about some of your background and why you got into this business in the first place.

Kris: I looked it up. And my first sale actually came in on August 20th, 2015, so not that long.

Chris Guthrie: Okay. So then what were you doing before you started selling on Amazon?

Kris: Well, first I was in the law firm business. I started a law firm. That wasn’t working. It’s just so inefficient. And then I went back to my Internet marketing background. And I was developing some blogs and did some freelance work. But none of that was working out. I knew that I wanted to create something more systematic. None of those things were working for me. So when the FBA movement came along, I was into that.

Chris Guthrie: Okay, cool. So then you have a law degree, I’m assuming, right? Or were you working in a law firm in some other capacity?

Kris: No, me and a partner started it. He was a friend in law school. So we started it. But the problem was my interest was never in law. I like law, but it was never something that I really wanted to do. And once you get into it, it’s such a grind. Being a lawyer, especially now with the market saturation, is so much more difficult than a lot of things you can do. So there wasn’t any enjoyment out of it. There wasn’t any reward out of it. It was just one of those things I had to move away from.

Chris Guthrie: Interesting. I’ve heard that before, that a lot of people that get law degrees get into it for a little while, but then they don’t stick around very long, maybe because of what you just mentioned, kind of being in a grind and everything. That’s interesting.

Okay, so you went back. You tried some other things, different types of blogs etc. And yeah, definitely, Amazon – all the sellers that I talk to – can be very well systemized. So is that the primary reason why you wanted to get going on Amazon? Is it because you saw, okay, here’s a business model where the process of what you need to do to be successful is a matter of you picking your product, you launching your product. And you grow that product. And then you’re working on the next one, and kind of going from there.

Kris: First you’ve got to go where the money is, because if you’re not in that area, then you’re not going to make any money. Amazon is where the money is. And secondly, I had to build something where my time wasn’t tied to the money because if you’re not doing that, then you’re not in business. So it’s one of those things where I’m definitely willing to put in the upfront work and build up the infrastructure and put up that upfront investment. But I’m looking for that down-the-road payoff, so this is perfect for that.

Chris Guthrie: That’s a good point. It’s not something that we touch on too often. But a lot of times, people that are looking for something to build online, an Internet-based business, this is okay too if this is what people want to do. But a common mistake is people end up just kind of creating a job for themselves. They do something online, but then it’s tied to their individual time. And yeah, if you’re building a business like this, then you can eventually hire employers, hire VAs, or whatever you might like to do on the way to free up more of your time and not remain tied to that. So that’s great.

Was this your first experience selling on Amazon, in August of 2015? Or had you been selling something in the past before as well?

Kris: I had gotten into it three Christmases ago. About three years ago, I got into the retail arbitrage. And not that I read anything or was in any particular course. I knew Amazon was a money ground. But I didn’t know how to do the FBA thing, private label thing. So I got into retail arbitrage. And back to our first point, that was a mess because everything was tied to my time, even though theoretically, it sounds great to buy a product for, let’s say, $10 and sell it for $25, the friction to get to that profit was so great. For me at least anyways, I could never make that into a business. So I did give that a try, and I was selling on Amazon. I felt a little bit of the Amazon power. But I knew that couldn’t work.

Chris Guthrie: Yeah, I’ve talked to people that are doing retail arbitrage. And it really depends. I think that it’s almost like the niche you go into… Well, I guess the same could be said here for people that are selling private label. But I know that any time you’re doing retail arbitrage, you’re going to have smaller margins than when you’re doing your private label stuff. So that’s cool.

Okay, so what were your main goals for this business? And then as we go along here, I would like to talk a little bit more about some of the stuff that you’re doing to grow, and talk about it as well. So what are your goals for this? You’re selling on Amazon. August 2015 was your first sale. We’re recording this in January. What were your goals for this?

Kris: Well, my first goal was just to get a growth revenue of $5000 a month. That was it because you see a lot of people with amazing, amazing results. And I didn’t know if I could be one of those people. But I just wanted to start off with $5000. If I could get $5000, then I knew that that could snowball into greater things. So the first thing is $5000. And my goal is just about money. And then secondarily to that is to create that systematic process of making money.

Chris Guthrie: Yeah, okay, so it’s very much just going for the lifestyle of the business that it can provide to you.

Kris: Exactly.

Chris Guthrie: You’re already past that $5k mark, you said.

Kris: Yes, I am.

Chris Guthrie: All right, so then that was your first goal. And now you’re looking here, started that new year about what you’re planning on doing next. What are you going to try and do to grow your business as you look into 2016? You’ve hit your goal, $5k plus, and you’re going along the way. What’s your plan to try and scale your business?

Kris: The really good thing for me is I think it’s somewhat lucky that I’ve backed my way into a good niche, and I’ve got a solid product to build off of. For me, my business growth is going to be based on products’ extensions. I’m not having any trouble selling once I get in there I get some sales under me. I get more established and get some reviews. I’m not having any problem selling. It’s just a matter for me getting inventory and new products and putting them out there because I’m doing several things right. So with that and with a good niche and a good supplier, this is getting easier and easier as I go along.

Chris Guthrie: Interesting, that’s great. We’ll dive into both of those elements, the supplier, how you went through that process, some of the niches you’ve… You don’t have to talk about the niche specifically you picked but rather maybe how you arrived at it.

But before that, actually, I’m curious. How much time are you spending now on your Amazon business? Is this something that’s your full-time thing? Or are you running other businesses or doing other tasks as well at the same time?

Kris: This is not a full-time thing. This gets about 40 percent of my time. The workload depends. It’s just based on what I’m doing. Recently, it’s been heavy because I’m getting my third product. And I’ve also been looking at other products because like I said, this is just like a print money thing. It’s like more product, more money. So it’s just about expanding as fast as possible.

And this was interesting. Amazing recently increased my storage limit from 5000 to 8000. Now before they extended it, I asked them if they would. And they said, “No, you haven’t increased your sales enough.” And then like three days later, they gave me 3000 more storage units. So I was like, “Okay.” I don’t know if it was a coincidence or what. But either way, I’m happy about that.

I’ve been spending more time lately. But there have been some weeks where I’ve spent as little as 10 hours.

Chris Guthrie: Okay, great. For people who are listening, if you’re just getting started out selling, and you’re running into that issue where you have the storage limit, one thing you can do if Amazon won’t increase that, you can just have them store… Say, if you’re using a freight forwarder, you could have some of those units stored at their warehouse. Or worst-case scenario, I suppose you could have some of the units sent to your actual house or location where you’re living. But that’s another thing. But for the most part, I’ve heard people not having trouble with that. So maybe it’s a more recent change, I guess, along the way.

Okay, so then about 10 hours per week. You mentioned you’re primarily working on launching your products. You have two right now, and you’re working on getting a third out. How are your sales split right now between these two products? Are you seeing like an 80-20 type thing? Are you seeing closer to 50-50?

Kris: One of them is dominant. I would say it’s 70-30. I’m working on increasing the second product sales. I’ve recently lowered the price on it to increase the sales. And then this third product, they should be sending it out by air in the next two days. And I’ve just received some samples at my home. I’ve got about 18 sets that I’m going to send to Amazon as well. So I’ll have those four up pretty soon.

Chris Guthrie: Okay, so about 70-30. That makes sense. Everyone I talk to, they start with one product. And then they get onto the next one. It’s always going to be, of course, most of the sales for the first to start out. So then what did you do to get your initial sales? And then what are you trying to do now? You’re at 70-30 split. What are you trying to do to get that other 30 to try to drive you more sales for your business?

Kris: Well, initially, I didn’t do anything besides some broad pay-per-click. And this is without reviews, i.e. no reviews, just put it out there, and it’s sold. It didn’t sell great, but it was moving. I think I really did back myself into just a good product. I picked something. And there are FBA people out there, just private labeling. It’s not all just like your standard companies. But it’s still pretty broad. So I didn’t have to do very much. But recently, right before Christmas, I made a huge mistake. I did the classic checkbox mistake. You have the…

Chris Guthrie: Oh dear. I know. As soon as you said checkbox mistake, I knew exactly where you were going. But yeah, go ahead.

Kris: So I knew all about the checkbox. It wasn’t like a surprise to me. I just was working on my listing late one night and neglected to see it. So it was really weird because I’ve recently been concerned about cellphone security and how much time I spend looking at my cellphone. I got into this incessant habit of checking my FBA sales and checking my email. So I restored my phone completely. I restored my phone at about 11:30. About two hours later, I have like 700 units fly off the shelf within a span of like one hour. So it was just weird that right after I took my FBA app, the Amazon seller app, off my phone, that happened. And then the next morning at 11 a.m., I see I’m a bestseller. And I’m like, “Uh-oh, I’m not a bestseller.” [Laughs]. So I knew something went wrong. So I checked, and sure enough, I just got just bought out. They didn’t take all of my inventory, but they took a lot. So I contacted Amazon ASAP. And it ended up I couldn’t get back 150 units. So 150 units went out the door for free. The cool thing though about that is that it spiked my sales. So I got to find out some information on what it takes to be a BSR, whatever. And then beyond that though, ever since that day or ever since the span of two days, my sales have been… It kicked my sales up by like 5 or 7 units a day, so it was really cool.

Chris Guthrie: That’s interesting. It’s basically something that was really terrible. But then you were able to get Amazon to cancel a lot of those orders that hadn’t yet been fulfilled. So it was a 100 percent coupon that was basically posted to the main sales page. And then presumably, some deal site or deal forum – there are so many of them out there – might’ve picked it up. Someone saw it while they’re browsing Amazon. They posted it. And then everyone was just like, “Hey, take this free product.” Were you able to track down the site that had posted it? I suppose it doesn’t matter. It could’ve been anyone.

Kris: I wasn’t able to. And the sales all happened between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Central Time. So it was a real quick run. It wasn’t like a kind of a thing where it picked up over time. It was gone in a second. So I’m glad I was able to get most of them back, though, because those FBA fees would’ve hurt.

Chris Guthrie: Yeah. So was 700 all the stock that you had for that product remaining?

Kris: No, I had more product.

Chris Guthrie: Okay, so you just stopped it in time though.

Kris: I guess whoever was there, they got all they could, and that was it. The good thing is it was limited to one per customer.

Chris Guthrie: Yeah. So for people who are listening that might not know what the checkbox is so we can dive into it, do you want to just briefly tell them specifically what that error is, so that they can make sure they avoid it?

Kris: Yeah, when you’re creating a promotion, you have to go down to… There are several little things that Amazon lists that you have to check or uncheck for different options. And one of those is the checkbox to have the promotional code display on your product detail page. So if someone looks on your listing and you have your 100 percent off promo code on there, then they can just get it for free. And that’s what happened. A lot of people got mine for free. So you want to make sure to uncheck that box so it doesn’t display on your detail page.

Chris Guthrie: Yeah. So the common mistake is that for some reason, Amazon leaves that on by default, as opposed to off by default. But I guess they figure that most people that are creating promo codes aren’t doing different types of things or trying to drive a bunch of sales that are really low or free price. And maybe that’s their reasoning for it. But I’ve talked to a lot of sellers, and this is a common thing that’s happened. I believe that in one of our earlier episodes – I’ll give link to it in the show notes – it’s happened to another seller as well. And I don’t think he was able to get that many cancelled. So you seem to have fared better there.

Kris: I did fare better. But the weird thing is that Amazon is so discombobulated with this. First of all, when you think they just put like a bright, red box and this has become such an issue…

Chris Guthrie: [Laughs]

Kris: [Laughs]. And then secondly, when you call in to alert them of the problem, a lot of the times, the initial waves of support you get will just tell you like, “Oh, it’s okay, not a big deal.” They put me off too, and I kept asking questions, and I kept pestering them, until finally, I got to someone who understood the nature of the problem. And it’s just funny to me that it’s not more of something that they focus on.

Chris Guthrie: Yeah, it’s kind of interesting… I’ve heard some people talk about it. You’d think that they would have changed it. Maybe they will, eventually. And that’s just a good lesson for people that are selling, both experienced sellers and sellers that are newer, starting out listening. In case you haven’t had that mistake happen, make sure you always double-check that.

I want to go back to the fact that you picked a product, and you were able to start selling it before you even had reviews, which always would signify that you’re in a good spot. Anytime I talk to someone, and they have their product up. And they’re already getting sales before they’ve even done much promotion. Then that’s a really, really good sign. You don’t have to go into what you’re selling or necessarily what niche you’re in. But what did you do to find it? Were you just looking on Amazon? And if you were, can you talk about what you were looking for when you were on there?

Kris: What I was looking for was the most boring product that you could find in the world [laughs].

Chris Guthrie: [Laughs].

Kris: I just wanted to find something that nobody cared about. It’s not exciting. And I didn’t necessarily have to know anything about it. And lightweight, relatively small, small to medium packaging, something I’d get a lot of, and something that would be cheap to make. So that’s what I was looking for. The main thing is boring, because if you pick something exciting, you can guarantee it’s going to attract all sorts of people. So that was my focus. There wasn’t a focus on anything else, like BSR. I wasn’t looking for BSR. I was just looking for like okay, do people like this one? And then 2, is it boring as hell? So that’s where I was focusing.

Chris Guthrie: Okay. So now that you’ve been selling within that space, and you’ve presumably done a better job with your listing, and you’ve got better packaging and everything else. Have you noticed any other competitors come in yet? Or is it still pretty wide open?

Kris: I think there have been a number of competitors that have come in, but they haven’t put a dent in my sales. I can see the competition. They’re there, and they’re racking up a lot of reviews really fast. A lot of people have a lot more reviews than I do. I haven’t focused on reviews, actually, because I’m a little bit leery of where Amazon is going with reviews. But my products have been selling fine regardless.

Chris Guthrie: Yeah, so you’ve just been doing reviews from email follow-up sequences then, or have you been doing some other things as well, like top reviewers?

Kris: I was going to do top reviewers, and then I got derailed by the run on my inventory. But my initial reviews came from friends and family. Actually, another good thing from the run on my inventory is those people that got it for free actually left a number of reviews. I’ve used Secret Deals Club and got some reviews there. But other than that, I don’t have that many reviews.

Chris Guthrie: Okay, cool. So then one thing I wanted to ask too is beyond the products that you’re launching right now, I’m kind of coming back now to your goals. You mentioned originally that part of it was just looking for a business that could be systematized and be able to generate cash. Are you thinking about potentially trying to sell this eventually? What are your goals for that?

Kris: I have thought about selling it. And I would love to sell it. If there came an opportunity to sell, I would be on it in a heartbeat. But I don’t concern myself with it, if you know what I mean. It’s something that I know the possibility exists. But I’m not waiting for that white horse to come down and say, “Hey, we’re ready to buy you at 20 times revenue,” or whatever. I’m just keeping going. And if somebody wants it, then it’ll happen. And if not, I’ll just keep making more products.

Chris Guthrie: Interesting. If you’re ever thinking about selling, then it seems like… I’ve talked to a lot of different brokers that primarily have been selling websites and other types of digital properties. But even more now, people are talking about selling Amazon FBA businesses. And we actually had a broker on the show as well, which I’ll again have in the show notes. You go to Sellercast.com/20 to go check out the show notes for this show. I’ll share links to those shows as well if you wanted to check those out as well.

The other thing I was curious about actually is beyond the mistake on the run on the inventory, was there anything else that you’ve done along the way that you made mistakes on, that you think that people that are just getting started, or even people that are experienced sellers, could learn from?

Kris: Absolutely. I’ve made so many mistakes, it’s ridiculous.

Chris Guthrie: [Laughs] That’s fine...

Kris: I just continually make mistakes, I trip and fall. I get up and trip and fall. So it’s a continual learning process. First one I would say is my brand name is too narrow. And I thought about this. I was cognizant of it. But I still didn’t make it broad enough. I was thinking more within my product extension domain. But now that I’m up and selling, I want to expand to a lot more stuff. And my name just doesn’t fit for some of the extensions. But at this point, I think I’m stuck with it. I don’t really want to rename my company. So I’m just going to stick with it. And oh well, it’s one of the things that I wish could be different. Someone else is listening to this, I would say, definitely pick something more general.

Secondly, I opened up my pro account too soon. So I would say wait to open up your pro account. I mean it’s $40 a month — that’s money. I would wait to open it up until you’re really close to ready to sell. The first time, I didn’t know what I was doing when I was shipping. And I thought the supplier would ship it to me. And I didn’t know how that worked. So I had to hire a freight forwarder company, pay a premium. And they were very helpful. But I paid a premium on that. So I lost probably somewhere between $500 to $1000 in unnecessary shipping costs the first time.

Second time, I could’ve shipped for cheaper and faster if I had just gone by air, because my freight forwarder guys, for some reason, overcharged me. And then when I delivered to the residents, they charged me a $200 residence fee because I guess they’ve got to bring it down off the truck. So that’s a $200 fee from the local company. So shipping has been a big paying point for me. And you do as much as you can, as fast as you can, and hope it’s the most efficient option. But shipping has really been a problem for me, something I’m trying to get better at.

Chris Guthrie: Let’s dig into that a bit. So you did freight forwarder the first time. What are you doing right now for your more recent orders? What are you planning on doing? Are you still using freight forwarders? Are you talking to your suppliers and then using their DHL account to ship? What are you doing for those?

Kris: Yeah, I’m going to use their air shipping.

Chris Guthrie: Okay. So what’s that going to be in terms of the cost savings for you? Do you have a rough percentage of what you think what it will cost? ... Through your freight forwarders versus with your supplier?

Kris: Yeah, my freight forwarder last time was supposed to be $900. And this is by sea. And this time it’s going to be the same price, and this is by air. So I mean it looks like they were just inflating the charge on me.

Chris Guthrie: Perhaps offline, we’ll talk about the company. I don’t want to have anyone coming down on us later. Okay, so that’s now the new strategy. So is this the same supplier for all of your products currently?

Kris: Yes. My latest extension, which is unrelated to the first three, is a different supplier.

Chris Guthrie: Oh, okay. Let’s talk a little bit about your suppliers as well. Did you find everyone through Alibaba? Or are you using other sources as well?

Kris: No, just Alibaba.

Chris Guthrie: Okay. And do you think at some point… I always talk to sellers that are going to the Canton Fair. And I’d like to actually go some time just to meet up with other people that are doing well enough, that they’d want to go to China. And also, it could just be fun to go there. But have you considered going to the Canton Fair or anything like that for your business in 2016? Or do you feel like when you need to, maybe you’ll do that?

Kris: I would love nothing more than to go to China and just check everything out, get a better feel for it, because when you’re over here and everything is through Skype, you don’t have much of a feel for anything that’s going on. So I would love to go. But it’s a matter of where you want to put your money. So my money is best put just going into inventory for the time being. I think a trip to China is in my future but not my near future.

Chris Guthrie: Yeah, I figure it wouldn’t be until maybe the latter half of the year. But I was curious to see what you thought about that. Are there any other things that have come up during the shipping process? Are you using an inspection service? Are you doing anything like that along the way? Or were you fortunate in that the products arrived as you wanted them to look and everything else?

Kris: I am fortunate. I’m really lucky because my supplier is great. The person who I deal with, I have a really good relationship with her, and I trust her. And my products have all arrived at good condition, looking good. They sent me pictures beforehand. So she’s kind of like my pseudo inspector. And everything has worked out well with that, so far so good.

Chris Guthrie: Okay, good. Is there anything else that you think that people who are listening, that you’ve learned from your experience of selling on Amazon would be helpful for them to know? Other than that, I think we’ll probably wrap it up here. But anything that you’d like to kind of close out on?

Kris: There are a few things I’d like to say. First of all, invest in crisp, clear pictures. Those can make a huge difference, at least for me. I think people can see my product better, so they can experience it better, and it puts them that much closer to buying it.

Secondly, for SEO, if you want to increase your rankings, what I’m doing now is I’ve lowered my product price, and I’ve increased my pay-per-click bid for exact match keyword terms. So that way, I’m only getting bids or clicks on those keyword terms. And then the product is more likely to convert, and I’m more like to raising the rankings for those. So I would start off with broad-targeted pay-per-click when you start and then just get an idea, look at the data, analyze it. I found out so much and got so many advantages just from bidding broadly and then just looking everything and then analyzing it. So I would do that just to start off with. A few more things here…

Chris Guthrie: I was just going to say, on the pay-per-click then, so is that how you initially started? How did you initially do your pay-per-click? And is that something that evolved based on your experience of testing?

Kris: I initially did a small, broad pay-per-click. My bid wasn’t high. I had no feel for what I was doing besides what I had learned. So I just started small and then grew as I did. And then I found out where it was too much to bid for pay-per-click, where I couldn’t get a return on my money. Now I keep my pay-per-click under 75 cents. Other people run wild with it. But that gets too inefficient, and you don’t want to get into that kind of realm, unless you’re gathering data. That’s the only time where I would overpay for advertising.

And a couple of more things is I read on Facebook. A lot of people try one product. They try two. Neither works. They get really discouraged. And I think people have got to keep in mind that there is a whole spectrum out there of things you can sell on Amazon. You might’ve picked two and failed out of like 500,000. So I think it’s easy to get discouraged when you don’t see results like everyone else. But I could’ve easily picked like a loser product and then been in like a totally opposite situation where I’m not growing. I’m getting two sales per day. So to me, you’ve got to 1) get lucky a little bit, but 2) also stack the deck in your favor. If you get a commodity product, you’re going to be in trouble. So you’ve got to find a way, in some way, form, or fashion, to not be a complete commodity – whether it’s changing your color, better packaging etc. That’s something I would do.

And then one more thing here. Try to deal with a supplier, an actual supplier and not a reseller because there are a lot of resellers out there. And you’ll pay a premium just for them to be your middlemen.

Chris Guthrie: How did you make sure you’re talking to your actual supplier when you found them on Alibaba?

Kris: Well, I asked them.

Chris Guthrie: It’s tough, I guess, right.

Kris: It is tough. You never…

Chris Guthrie: You never know for sure, I guess, right?

Kris: You do never know for sure. But there are things. You can kind of get a feel just through talking to them. And I did outright ask them. But secondly, pictures, I had them send me pictures. And I also just don’t look for a quick relationship. If someone is trying to get you into a quick deal, sometimes that might be an indicator. I’m looking to just talk to you. Whether they put pressure on you, whether they’re trying to… If they’re just talking to you…

One thing I do with my supplier is we talk about non-business stuff a lot. I like to build relationships with who I deal with. We talk about cupcake sometimes just because that’s what she’s interested. We talk about cupcakes and baking because you want to invest in these people. You’re fragile to these people, so you want to invest in them because you want them to treat you right. And then at the same time, you want to treat them right. It’s a reciprocal relationship. That’s something you want to really do. And everything can fall apart if you get the wrong person. So I try to talk to them a lot. And I don’t mind spending days talking to them. Over the course of several days, just video-chatting with them on Skype or regular chat, just because it’s worth it to spend that time and know who you’re dealing with.

Chris Guthrie: That’s good. I love it. And I especially like to point to earlier when you talked about selling a commodity product and how that’s going to be a struggle. And I know that even just the further along we go in the market, the more that will be the case. If people keep trying to sell the same types of products without doing any differentiation, then it’s going to be a struggle.

Kris: Can I add two more things?

Chris Guthrie: Yeah, sure.

Kris: One thing – I consulted with someone from China on this, and everybody knows it by now – is that you’re going to experience a lot more competition now because there’s going to be a lot more Chinese sellers selling directly on Amazon. So that’s just something for everyone to keep in mind and know going forward. It’s just something you have to deal with. The business world is changing, so it’s just something to look forward to and try to adapt to.

And then the other thing is I think the economy is back more on shakier grounds, just by judging by the feel I get from the stock market and everything … nobody knows. You can’t time these things, whatever. But with that said, if you’re thinking about buying, getting into a product, I would go less on the luxury products for middle class and more on staples and stuff, either that wealthier people buy or stuff that is generally needed more. The further you get away from necessities… I think I would decrease my exposure to those types of products.

Chris Guthrie: Some next-level stuff there [laughs]. I think that a lot of people don’t think about that, to be honest. When they’re looking at the research, they’re looking at what’s selling. They’re looking on Amazon. Maybe they are doing the same strategy like you mentioned before where they’re looking for those boring products to go after, that they haven’t really been revitalized. That’s a good point. If there is an economy issue… hopefully, there won’t be, but obviously, everything is kind of cyclical. And if there is a little bit of a downtrend, then yeah, if you have a product that’s not necessarily a necessity, then that could be a struggle trying to get those sales going. If you’re selling it on Amazon, when you’re basing those numbers on pre-economy issues [laughs]. So that’s a good point.

Cool, thank you so much, Kris. And I’m glad you were able to come on and share some experience with us. And just thank you again so much.

Kris: Absolutely, thank you for having me.

=====

Outro: All right, that was the show with Kris. Hopefully, you enjoyed the episode and picked up some unique insights that he shared as we got into this conversation. And of course, if you want to check out the show notes, you can go to Sellercast.com/20. Thank you so much for tuning in. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode or any other episodes we’ve had, please go ahead and leave us a review on iTunes or wherever it may be that you’re listening to this show. Thank you so much, and we’ll see you in the next episode.